| The congregation drives away to the village hall for the bake-meat, or tea as it is now called, and I drop off at the village shop to buy Felix for one whose need is greater than mine. Stitchwort and Coca-Cola tins decorate the ditch.
I think of the post-resurrection appearances as a mighty sculptor created them on a tympanum at Vézelay: Christ’s meeting the Marys, his walk to Emmaus, and finally his leave-taking on the Mount of Olives, all in whirling stone; and I hear his greetings and farewells.
The tympanum fills the space above the church door and that of the inner ear. The Paschal candle will be snuffed on Ascension Day, his light filling the universe, “And the portals high are lifted To receive their heavenly King” — Christopher Wordsworth, the poet’s brother.
But I especially like Mrs Alexander’s
And ever on our earthly path
A gleam of glory lies,
A light still breaks behind the
cloud
That veils thee from our eyes.
And I especially love the marvellous The Cloud of Unknowing, which is required reading for Ascension Day. Clifton Wolters, its translator, suggests that it may have been written by an East Midlands country parson during the terrible and yet devotionally wonderful 14th century, when Black Death and war “lost”, as it were, to the great mystics Julian of Norwich, Richard Rolle, and Walter Hilton. And, at Ascensiontide especially, to an East Midlands country parson, who could write like this:
“Do not think that because I call it a ‘darkness’ or a ‘cloud’ it is the sort of cloud you see in the sky, or the kind of darkness you know at home when the light is out. That kind of darkness or cloud you can picture in your mind’s eye in the height of summer, just as in the depth of a winter’s night you can picture a clear and shining light. I do not mean this at all.
“By ‘darkness’ I mean ‘a lack of knowing’ — just as anything you do not know or may have forgotten may be said to be dark to you, for you cannot see it with your inward eye. For this reason it is called a ‘cloud’, not of the sky, of course, but of ‘unknowing’, a cloud of unknowing between you and God.”
The friends of Jesus on the Vézelay carving are looking downwards at what they have to do now that he has ascended and left them in charge. They look practical, and he looks not unlike a small bird winging its way home.
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